The purpose of this study is to examine two educational materials from different decades, to see if they have a conscious gender and equality perspective, and to see if they have followed the development society made regarding gender and equality. Even the curricula have a part in my study as I will relate them to the educational materials. Equality as a concept means briefly that women and men should have the same conditions, and gender depicts our notions of femininity and masculinity.I have chosen to do textual analyses, focusing on multimodal discourse because I analyze both text and image. I also use both quantitative and qualitative methods.My questions are: In which way do the curricula and the educational materials express equality?; In which way do the curricula and the educational materials express gender?; Do the educational materials express the fundamental values written about equality and gender in the curricula? And, if this is the case, does it mean that educational materials have followed the development of the Swedish society?The conclusion of this work is that equality and gender are presented as goals in both curricula, but the new curricula have developed that section more.

Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

In the present case, the conception of policy hitchhiking gets evaluated in terms of its implications for democracy. This task is executed through the accomplishment of a case study of the use of social- and environmental clauses in the Swedish competitive tendering.A useful definition of policy hitchhiking, including different types of actors, is created.Through the defining of democracy and policy hitchhiking, the author comes to the conclusion that policy hitchhiking in some respects does meet democracy values.The thesis? result can in some sense be regarded as a contribution to the pursuit of knowledge of how power is distributed in the society and how the current distribution can be explained and understood..

This study is about youths, democracy and school. It seeks to describe and problemize the school's role in the democratic society. Firstly, using Social Representations Theory, 44 upper secondary shool pupils? representations, or conceptions, of democracy are described and discussed. These representations are then analyzed in relation to the school's role in the democratic society, as it is described by different researchers.The results show that many of the youths have a rather simplistic and abstract view of democracy, describing it only in terms of general principles and the main features of the representative democracy, such as voting in national elections.

Democracy is said to uphold the dearest values and be the most moral system. But it cannot be characterized as a rigid "syste" but a continuously changing political framework, under which aims and values can be fulfilled - and replaced.The increasingly diverse and ever-changing environment of contemporary democracies forces change upon the systems' natural evolution, which makes their future features uncertain and unforeseeable. A powerful change-force doctrine does however claim change is mainly (or merely) caused by the power of ideas; the elite power over ideas can thus provide a natural foundation for the analysis of the direction of development for democracy. This study aims to provide such a foundation by reconstructing empirical and normative descriptions of democracy at two certain points in time, following extensive government studies.As a tool for analysis, this study identifies values of substantial and procedural character central to democracy theory and discourse. It further creates ideal types of democracy based on these values, to which the nature of democracy is measured.

According to the curriculum for primary schools, pre-school and after-school Lgr11 says that students should experience different feelings and moods using different forms of expression including drama (Lgr11 2011:10). The purpose of this study was to examine how educational drama is used in three elementary schools and for what purpose in teaching. The aim was also to examine the four teachers' perceptions of what educational drama means to them.I have used a qualitative approach with interviews and contacted four teachers from three different schools to get different information for my study. Three of them were educated teachers and one of them was an actor. The information provided in the interviews was analyzed using educational drama theory and previous research. The interviews with the teachers and the actor showed the use of different methods of educational drama in education.

This essay examines the 1962 Swedish parliamentary debate preluding the proposition to introduce a uniform compulsory education for all Swedish children. The proposition aimed at ending the previously heterogeneous educational system and replace it with a more equal and democratic system.A widespread debate ensued, regarding the status of Christian religious education (kristendomskunskap) and its new emphasis on scientific objectivity. This essay will examine the relative position of Christianity within the new uniform school system, as it was articulated by the members of the Swedish parliament. This analysis will be achieved through the use of a discourse analytical study of the parliamentary records, the recorded motions and bills. From these records a substantial disparity in the parliamential members articulation of the concept of Christianity can be ascertained, even within the discourse of an educational regime.

The point of the study is to investigate educational and vocational counselors' strategies on drop in calls. In order to answer the purpose, the issues concerning the educational and vocational counselors' strategies and guidance models/methods at drop-in calls investigated.Qualitative interviews were conducted with six educational and vocational counselors'.In the study it appears that the educational and vocational counselors' are unable to have any strategies for drop-in conversation because the applicant will come spontaneously and the educational and vocational counselors' lack information about the individual and its purpose of the interview. Guidance models/methods designed to facilitate for the applicant and give them a sense of understanding about them selves there environment and results in a clarification of the election, not often used during the drop-in calls.These are not often used due to the lack of time because the intention of the call is to provide with information to the applicant in as little time as possible. In an educational and vocational counselors? perspective the guidance that is offered at drop-in calls defective..

This essay examines a presupposed correlation between the way one look upon values and the way one look upon the will of the people in a theoretical democratic context. The more specific purpose is to test the following hypothesis: There is a reversed connection between the way one look upon values and the way one look upon the will of the people in a theoretical democratic context, that is; a strong claim of values give reason to a limited conception of the will of the people and a weak claim of values gives reason for a more unlimited conception of the will of the people.In order to test the hypothesis I examine three different conceptions of democracy, these are: pluralist democracy, deliberative democracy and constitutional democracy. I analyze the way they look upon values, there view of the will of the people and finally if there is a connection between the way they look upon values and the will of the people. Values should be understood in a metaethical context. In other words it is not values in the ?common? meaning, instead its how val-ues in them selves should be understood, and even more relevant, what we mean when we ex-press values.My conclusions are, first and foremost, that there is a correlation between the will of the people and values, according to the formulation of the hypothesis.

AbstractIn the beginning of 2007 the Swedish municipality Örebro decided to have a democraticexperiment, which ought to go under the name, ?Dialouge for the citizens?. Therepresentative elected politicians in Örebro tried to find ways to involve the people in theprocess of ruling. Why they choose to try this experiment on this very delicate matter, theclosure of several schools in the municipal, is one of the questions this essay is trying toanswer.The purpose of this essay is to find out whether the process was an attempt for the politiciansof the representative democracy to implement deliberative democracy in the structure of thelocal governance.The result of this study is that the politicians didn?t manage to reach to the citizens the waythey formerly had planned..

The purpose of this paper is to study the subject Islam and Democracy and see whatcommonalities exist between the two ideas and traditions of thoughts. The subject is topicaland often highlighted by the media in the West. The Islamic voices that we hear today iscertainly not democratic, given the violence and hatred carried out by Islamic extremistsagainst the West. The investigation of this paper have shown a different direction when thereare other voices such as those investigated reformist thinkers who argue that Islam has manydemocratic elements, and even that Islam is more suitable than democracy. According to thereformists ismodel of an Islamic state is democratic and legitimate.

The purpose of this essay was to analyze the collapse of democracy in the Weimar Republic. This was done by analyzing some of the most turbulent crises in its history like the communists attempt to take power in 1919, the kapp-putsch of 1920, hyperinflation 1923 and the economic depression 1929-1933. The method that I used in this essay is called methodological individualism. It was an analytical framework which helped to understand the citizens view on democracy and legitimacy. The theoretical framework was based on Juan J.Linz and Seymour Martin Lipsets ideas on legitimacy and efficacy.

The aim of this essay is to examine if the attitudes and the experiences of Ability Grouping are the same on different levels of the school organisation.I have chosen to answer the following two questions:· Have the teachers, the students and the headmaster the same idea concerning the educational model at the school, that is, the pros and cons of Ability Grouping?· Does the intentions of the curriculum agree with this educational model?I knew what I thought about the educational model at the school that is the object of this essay, after spending ten weeks at it as a trainee, but I felt that I would be interesting to know what the people who are part of that system everyday think about it.In order to be able to answer my questions, I used both the qualitative and the quantitative method. I interviewed the headmaster and five teachers to find out what they thought about Ability Grouping. I also distributed inquiries to 70 students from 6th to 9th grade to get their point of view. In the theoretical discussion I explain the meaning of different conceptions that I use throughout this essay.

The present state of politics in contemporary Venezuela portrays a country of polarization, a chase for power and accusations of authoritarian and even undemocratic rule. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the democracy in Venezuela, in order to clarify the sometimes vauge perception of the political situation. By applying the theories of polyarchical democracy put forth by Robert Dahl, one of the most highly regarded theorists on the subject, accordingly the discussion will therefore follow a theoretical framework. Dahl requires seven nstitutions to be guaranteed in a democracy, amongst them the possibility to vote, run for public office and the practise of freedom of speech. Measuring Dahl's levels of institutions in Venezuela, it is made clear that the level of democracy vary in different areas.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.